Kevin Rudd backs 'captain's pick' candidate Nova Peris

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has endorsed Nova Peris as Labor’s Senate candidate for the Northern Territory after local officials told him they wanted the party to unite behind the indigenous Olympian.

Mr Rudd, who travelled to Darwin on Tuesday, said he had consulted NT Labor president Matthew Gardiner and NT Labor secretary Kent Rowe on former prime minister Julia Gillard’s decision to dump sitting Senator Trish Crossin and install Ms Peris at the top of Labor’s NT Senate ticket.

''They have told me on behalf of the leadership of the Labor Party here in the Northern Territory that despite all the difficulties that have happened, with the national intervention in the preselection, that they want, here in the territory, the Australian Labor Party members want us to get behind Nova as the Australian Labor Party candidate for the Senate, Mr Rudd told reporters at a Darwin shopping centre.

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''The bottom line is this: I don't like the way in which it was handled, that's the truth.

''But I've got to say, we've got to look to the future, and we’ve got to get behind Nova in what is going to be a tight Senate race here in the Northern Territory, and a tight race for us all.''

He said Ms Peris was ''a fantastic candidate''.

Former prime minister Ms Gillard announced in January that she was making a ''captain's pick'' to install Ms Peris at the top of the Labor Senate ticket for the NT, a decision that was later formally endorsed by the party’s national executive. If elected, Ms Peris will be Labor’s first indigenous MP at the federal level.

In her valedictory speech to Parliament last month, Senator Crossin slammed the process by which she was removed.

''Do we need indigenous representation - most certainly, but not in a vacuum, without a plan, or without a strategy,'' she said.

''Just because one person says it must be so, doesn't make it right, or democratic.

''There are many wonderful indigenous members of the party in the NT who have now been denied the chance to replace me. This is grossly unfair, it is undemocratic and it is not the Labor way,'' she said.

After Senator Crossin's exit speech, Labor senators Kim Carr and Doug Cameron also openly attacked Ms Gillard in Parliament, telling the Senate that they were disgusted at the way Senator Crossin had been treated.

''I am appalled at the way my party has treated [Senator Crossin] and I hope that we never see the likes of that again,'' Senator Cameron said. ''If someone has made a contribution, like the contribution you have made, Trish . . . then they should be treated with common decency and dignity. You were not, and it is a shame that the Labor Party was involved in that.''

Senator Carr said then: ''While I wish Trish's successor every success . . . I still maintain, Trish, that you were treated unjustly.''

Mr Rudd campaigned on Tuesday afternoon with Luke Gosling, the ALP candidate for the marginal Coalition-held seat of Solomon. On Wednesday Mr Rudd will travel to Arnhem Land to attend a ceremony commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Yirrkala bark petitions, which marked the start of the modern land rights movement.